


it can't be wrong

by 24Carrots



Category: Schitt's Creek (TV) RPF
Genre: M/M, Redmond cameo, THE BEST, There has to be more to this story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:01:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22386109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/24Carrots/pseuds/24Carrots
Summary: The day before and after Dan heard Noah's version of "The Best."
Relationships: Dan Levy/Noah Reid
Comments: 28
Kudos: 66





	it can't be wrong

**Author's Note:**

> This is fiction set in an alternate universe where everyone is single. Please use the back button if that bothers you.
> 
> I'm deeply amused by the way stories around key events in the show keep changing, and apparently now I'm writing my own version.
> 
> Title from Tina Turner's "The Best," obviously.

It’s the middle of the night when Noah sends him the voice memo with the song. 

It was a relatively normal night until the message. Dan watched an episode of Downton Abbey to wind down from the day. He gave Redmond his last outside break, scratched his tummy and ears, and rewarded him with his evening dental chew before tucking him into bed. He was about to head to bed himself when Noah’s text made his phone jitter across the top of the chest of drawers. 

_Hey. Got inspired and finished the thing._  
_Recorded at home so the sound isn’t great, but you’ll get the idea._  
_yourethebest.m4a_

Dan cries when he hears it. He cries alone. On the floor. Because he stupidly clicks play halfway between his bathroom and bed, when he should know by now that the mere fact of Noah’s existence can do this to him from time to time, can just drop him to his knees. Just by being _Noah._ Noah’s voice fills up the echo of his own house and keeps going, expanding into the quiet stillness of Dan’s bedroom. Warm and whole and holy. Dan finds the floor before Noah is through the first verse; he can’t breathe, can’t stand, can’t think. Can’t. Can’t. Can’t. 

Dan has always loved the song. He can’t remember the first time he ever heard it, but it feels a bit like it has followed him around, popping up places it has no business being. Blaring between winter classics at the staff holiday party during his last year at MTV. Pumping out of the taco truck near his place in Toronto. On the mix CD one of his high school classmates gave everyone for graduation, wedged between Coldplay and Green Day and U2. In the car, a few minutes before he was kissed by a man for the first time. In the restaurant where Stacey took him for pie after he broke up with the first person he was sure he loved. 

He’s always felt like the song sort of belongs to him. It understands him, so powerfully one thing on the surface without hiding the deeper, truer, more vulnerable thing underneath if someone wants to look. And now, in Noah’s voice, the hidden notes and quiet drive and soft, yearning, pleading, vulnerability of the song is laid bare. Noah lays it bare. Noah lays him bare.

It’s easy to forget, when Noah is being his normal, unassuming, affable self, that he’s doing it on purpose. It’s what makes him a great actor. He grew up doing it, a constant and steady march of choices to be made with each moment, with his movements, with every twitch of his mouth and pitch of his voice. And this, today, this assault by audio file in the dark of night, is a deliberate choice. 

Dan knows exactly when Noah chose this, too. He knows he chose it a few hours earlier when they stood in Noah’s trailer and made a pact to find each other in two days. On Tuesday. 

“Want to sit?” Noah asked when Dan stepped into his trailer after shooting wrapped for the day.

“No. I won’t be long. I’m just—”

“Dan. You’ve been at it all day. Sit,” Noah said, sitting down himself and giving Dan a look that said _I don’t give a fuck that you’re my boss_. Dan was having an increasingly difficult time ignoring that look. So he sat closer than he would have if he’d been thinking too hard about it, closer than he would have a few weeks ago when things started shifting and morphing into this...whatever this is. Dan was close enough that he could feel Noah’s warmth—he was always so warm—and smell the soap he used to wash off the makeup from shooting, and see that his hair was still slightly damp at the temples from splashing against his face in the sink.

Noah got up and fished two bottles of water out of his minifridge and sat back down. Closer. Just barely closer. 

“So what brings you to my trailer?” Noah asked, taking a long swig with his lips gripping tight around the threads at the top of the bottle. Not that Dan was watching his lips, or his jaw pulled in a sharp line, or his throat as he swallowed.

“I just came to check on the status of the song.” It had the benefit of being true, so Dan didn’t have to try as hard as he might have otherwise to sound normal. Professional. 

Noah grinned and took another drink, draining the rest of the bottle. He capped it and set it on the small table in front of the couch and turned back to Dan with lips still slightly wet. He licked the moisture with the tip of his tongue. Not the slightest bit professional.

“Are you worried you won’t like it?” Noah asked.

“No.” It doesn’t sound convincing. Noah is certainly not convinced. He grins again and shifts just a little so their knees could be touching if Dan moved at all. Which he didn’t. He wouldn’t.

“Ah,” Noah said. “Daniel, you’re a better actor than that.”

Dan thought about standing up. Going. He usually did, when Noah started looking at him like that. He wasn’t blind. Noah is a good actor and he could hide this if he wanted to, the way his body drew closer and the way his voice turned into liquid and the way his eyes felt like they saw all of Dan no matter what part of him they were looking at. They looked at his lips then, ever so briefly, before they found his eyes again. Dan thought again about standing up. Going. He usually did. Dan stayed. And then Dan moved so their knees were touching.

“Are you worried you won’t like it?” Noah asked again, except he wasn’t talking about the song. Dan saw he wasn’t talking about the song, and Noah saw him see. And Noah smiled, and Dan thought about what he could do to that smile.

“I know I’ll like it. That’s not what I’m worried about,” Dan said. He couldn’t make the first move. He’s—they—there were rules, surely, about—

“Yeah,” Noah said. He started slow, a lazy finger tucked into the cuff of Dan’s jacket, ghosting back and forth across the thin, sensitive skin on the inside of his wrist. Intrusive enough to be clear, innocent enough to back away with their friendship unscathed if he was wrong. He wasn’t wrong. 

Dan thought about pulling away. Standing up. He didn’t. He couldn’t. Dan reached for Noah’s arm and held him still so he could think. He couldn’t think.

Every moment, every movement, every twitch of Noah’s mouth and pitch of his voice was a choice. Noah made another choice, a low hum in his throat, and then Dan was pulling him closer. Faster and closer. 

Their first kiss was quiet, like a whisper traded by touch instead of sound. Noah’s long lashes rested against his cheeks and he leaned in, the press of his thumb against the bone of Dan’s wrist the only sign of the effort it took him to stay at a stoppable pace. His lashes fluttered open again after, a silent challenge in the set of his mouth and the burn of his eyes, and Dan needed more than a whisper. He wanted to fucking roar, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. Not yet.

“I can’t,” Dan said, his voice too thin to sound like he meant it.

“What are you worried about?” Noah asked, propping his elbow on the back of the couch and combing his fingers through Dan’s hair. It was a choice, and it was soothing. And it worked.

“The future,” Dan said with a shrug. “About what might happen if this ends.”

“The future,” Noah mused, watching his fingers disappear into Dan’s hair. It felt so good, his hands tugging just enough to give Dan ideas. “I think about that a lot too. And about what mght happen if we never get to start.”

“Noah,” Dan said. He rested his forehead against Noah’s and closed his eyes and tried to think. He still couldn’t.

“Daniel.” The push of Noah’s breath was warm against Dan’s lips. “Can I have my future for a little longer before we go back to yours?” 

One of them—maybe both of them—made a low sound as Dan surged forward into another kiss. Their second kiss tumbled headlong into their third and their fourth and their fifth. Noah’s mouth was not like Patrick’s. Not once Dan pressed himself closer, not once Dan sighed his name against the skin of Noah’s neck. Not once Dan’s hand wrapped around his nape and urged him forward. Noah’s mouth asked for more and opened eagerly and pressed and bit and teased. Noah’s hands were different too, pulling and kneading and firing up every inch of Dan that Noah’s mouth couldn’t yet reach. The heat spread and spread until he felt like he might melt. 

Dan could have spent eternity there, tongues and hands and legs and hearts pressed together. But then Noah paused, lips wet and raw against his jaw. “Hey,” he murmured. He kissed Dan again, softly, briefly, and touched the pad of his thumb to Dan’s lower lip, a private smile fighting against the corners of his mouth. Dan wondered if his lips looked as swollen and red as Noah’s. He hoped they were. He hoped he looked as wrecked as he felt.

“I’m not on the call sheet tomorrow,” Noah said, leaning back just enough to let the air rush in, to let the thrumming energy escape into the space between them. “We can talk Tuesday if you need to. And if you still—Well we’ll talk either way. Okay?”

Dan managed a slow nod and managed to text a PA for their rides and managed to stop kissing Noah when the car arrived and managed not to say, “Fuck waiting, fuck thinking,” and managed to not invite Noah to come home with him. He managed to wave and not run after the car. He managed to go home and order dinner and eat and get ready for bed and only think about Noah for 87% of that time. 

So the song, showing up at the time Dan would have finally been doing all the things to Noah he’s been thinking about doing for weeks, is a choice.

Dan chose the song, but Noah chose exactly when to send it. Dan wipes the tears; he doesn’t even know why he’s crying. He pushes play again and listens to the lyrics. Listens to the way Noah stripped it down so it’s deep and true and vulnerable right there, right there for anyone to see. Dan listens to Noah in the dark. Alone. On the floor. Feels the soft whisper of Noah’s finger against his wrist and that first quiet kiss. This song has always followed him around, popping up where it doesn’t seem to belong. It belongs here. 

The text message comes on his fourth or fifth listen. His phone buzzes against the carpet and Dan has to roll ungracefully to reach it. Like the song, the message is a choice. 

_See you Tuesday._

Dan doesn’t text Noah back until the morning. But once he sees his own reply typed out, ready to send, the choice is easy. It’s easy.

_Free tonight instead?_


End file.
